I don't think stick to "what's exactly happening at the train?" would explain anything profound enough.
Purely for example, if one tries to convince some ordinary people in the west (or more specific, the States) that it is not Chinese people stole your job, and boycott Made in China won't change it - it would not gives any decent results or change of aspects to the crowd. That's just it, nobody "right", nobody "wrong", people have some opinons, like or not, those opinons stays.
For people being "Hong Kongers", which is pretty much a parallel (which means "no common point") identity of being "Ordinary Chinese citizens", the IDENTITY TAG stands out. Identity tag didn't means anything outright wrong or right, but it always STANDS OUT the more
we try to mix other things with it. (Like, mix the general feeling of "developed area", "open air", "corrupt-free", "proper mannered"...)
China, being the most long living civilization that 包容 ("contains", cann't find a proper word) all walks of lifes, from all kinds of cultural backgrounds, HAMMERS the identity tags. The identity tags have nothing outright wrong, Chinese vox pops just hammer it outright, we have to!
Airsuperiority, knowing you not being naive and being open minded to touch some stinking solid facts of our lives, you and I both know this is not a MTR issue, not a "right or wrong" issue, and it is an issue way before "commies" have anything to do with it. Let's say, in another topic "movie topics" in SDF, you once pointed out that mainlanders' image used to be poor peasants, prostitutes, 苦力 or something alike, nowadays they became more and more positive, more and more "normal" - Let's say, that is how identity tags fades away - normal, when people are "normal" to each other, we have a far more better position to talk about the proper and polite way of public transportation. - And by the way our society works these days, the future is bright, dare I say.